Robert Fisk Convinces Himself that Israel Has ‘Dragged the West Into Syrian War’

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File photo of the Iranian made Fateh 110 missile, which Israel reported targeted in raids into Syria over the weekend.

It seems that theethically challenged British ‘journalist’ Robert Fisk wanted desperately to impute the worst motives to Israel in analyzing reports of up to a dozen IAF strikes over the last few days on advanced Syrian weapons to prevent their transfer to Hezbollah. However, the weakness of his latest essay suggests that he may have found the case against Israel’s sober decision not to allow Iranian made Fateh-110 missiles to fall into the hands of the Shiite terror movement allied with Bashar al-Assad was simply too difficult.

He begins by expressing skepticism over the ‘official’ reason for Israel’s reported raid on Bashar al-Assad’s weapons and military facilities:

The story is already familiar: the Israelis wanted to prevent a shipment of Iranian-made Fateh-110 missiles reaching Hezbollah in Lebanon; they were being sent by the Syrian government. According, at least, to a ‘Western intelligence source’. Anonymous, of course. And it opens the old question: why when the Syrian regime is fighting for its life would it send advanced missiles out of Syria?

Well, for starters, Iran and Hezbollah have both backed President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war, a conflict, now in its third year, which has claimed over 70,000 lives and produced over one million refugees. But as fighting between forces loyal to the Assad regime and the rebels escalates, Assad has a powerful interest in facilitating the delivery of advanced weapons to Hezbollah in case he loses his grip on power and it becomes more difficult for the regime to channel weapons from Iran directly to Damascus.

Much more important, however, is the salient fact that Israel has now intervened in the Syrian war. It may say it was only aiming at weapons destined for the Hezbollah – but these were weapons also being used against rebel forces in Syria. By diminishing the regime’s supply of these weapons, it is therefore helping the rebels overthrow Bashar al-Assad. And since Israel regards itself as a Western nation – best friend and best US military ally in the Middle East, etc, etc – this means that “we” are now involved in the war, directly and from the air.

Fisk’s specious logic nearly “Fisks” itself, as his entire argument – that Israel has dragged the West into a foreign war – seems largely based on the following argument cum non-sequitur:

1. Israel has attacked arms caches in Syria.

2. Israel regards itself as a Western nation.

3. Therefore, Israel has dragged the West into the Syrian war.

The Indy contributor offers nothing else to suggest that Israeli strikes to prevent the transfer of deadly weapons to Syria has any influence whatsoever on the current debate in the US, or within other Western nations, over whether to intervene militarily in the civil war.

Of course, in addition to the speciousness of his logic, Fisk is essentially parroting Assad talking points – which, notably, was also parroted in a highly misleading headline chosen by a majorUK news corporation – that Israel is acting in alliance with “Islamist terrorists” to overthrow the regime, a charge so unserious that even Guardian Middle East Editor Ian Blackdismissed it as “lacking any evidence”.

Finally, Fisk complains thusly:

Let’s see if the US and the EU condemn Israel’s air attacks. I doubt it. Which would mean, if we are silent, that we approve of them.

However, Fisk’s suggestion that the US has been “silent” on the reported attacks is flatly untrue.

President Obama stated, after news of IAF strikes on Syria was first reported, that Israel was justified to guard “against the transfer of advanced weaponry to terror groups like Hezbollah” and suggested that there is considerable US-Israeli coordination regarding the threat of weapons transfers in Syria – a clear expression of support for Israel’s right to self-defense which was also echoed yesterday by UK foreign secretary William Hague.

In other words, one of the few places outside of the Syrian propaganda ministry where Israel’s decision to prevent an Iranian backed illegal militia, which occupies large swaths of Lebanon, from acquiring more deadly weaponry represents a dangerous provocation which may ignite another Western war in the Mid-East is the mind of Robert Fisk.

Adam Levick is the managing editor of CiF Watch, an affiliate of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA)

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Robert Fisk hatred toward Israel is deep seated.
he is one of those Brits who’s convinced that the state of Israel has should never have been established. He like so many other Arabists have been seduced by the Arab propaganda machine blaming all the ills of the Middle-East onto Israel,
Just as Hitler blamed all the ills of Germany onto the Jews.
The ousted president Morsi of Egypt the representative of the Muslim-brotherhood did absolutely nothing for the people of Egypt while in power, to the contrary,he did everything to disrupt public life, nothing was working,
from day one his henchmen scapegoated Coptic Christians by attacking them and their Churches, telling threatening them that there was no room for them in Egypt unless they converted to Islam. They would have been overjoyed to have attacked Jews, however that was impossible as their number was down from over 80,000 in the late 1940s to bare 100 today if that. The optic Christians who number some 10% of the 80,000,000 or so population of Egypt were around at least 600 years and practicing their religion at least 600 years before the dawning of Islam, therefore has as much right even more so to live their lives in security without being so vilely threatened by Morsi’s cohorts who are no better than the SS Nazis.
Since their inception in 1928 of the establishment of the Muslim-brotherhood party they have been trouble, they were ardent supporters of Hitler’s Germany, sending him a congratulating telegram on his accession to power in 1934 when he became supreme leader of Nazi Germany. The Muslim-brotherhood since it’s beginning have been a very nasty Jew-hating organization. No one should feel sorry for them!!!

Dave

Why do none of you answer the simple question Robert Fisk posed in his article: Syria has been accused of using the Iranian rockets against the rebels, so why would he transfer them to Hezbollah if he is in the middle of fighting for his life in Syria?

You all (including the ‘journalist’ of this article) just don’t like Fisk because he is actually the only unbiased reporter in the middle east. He tells it like it is, and neither Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, or, wait for it, even Israel, get a pass when they do something stupid.

Ko. B.

He would have been somebody during WOII.
Now? He is stupid and learned nothing from history.
Why does such people get so much podium.
Because the hatered is around us.

Reuven

Fisk is an obsessive anti-Semite. Muslim thugs beat the daylights out of him, awhile back, and yet he still never misses a chance to demonize Israel.

Isaac

Let me see if I understand it: Arabs are killing Arabs in Syria, with over 70000 people dead. Sunnis are killing Shias. Iran is supporting Assad, while Turkey and other Gulf states are supporting the rebels.

Robert Fisk’s conclusion: Israel is drawing the European states into the Syrian conflict.

Fisk’s opinions are well known. Doubt if he has much credibility in academia, the legitimate media or even with the average man in the street. ‘Fisking’ isn’t a pejorative for nothing?

Lynne T

Unfortunately, he’s still popular with Canada’s public broadcaster and treated with great respect / admiration. As for academia, again, there’s a lot of rot on campus both sides of the US/Canada border, with the “anti-Zionist” position being pretty popular.

Fred

Fisk has a cushy job it is clever to cast unchecked “facts ” as truth. He has been there he has verified in his dreams.